JDSU were kind enough to invite myself and Denis to a Test-Um product training day at the JDSU offices in Basingstoke. Michael, the Test-Um trainer, is extremely knowledgeable about cable testing in general (as an ex-installer himself) and about the whole Test-Um range in particular.
One heads up. The Test-Um name is going to start disappearing [...]

Popularity: 20% [?]

One of the great tools we have discovered recently has been Apache SpamAssassin, an open source spam identifier.
I’ve yet to see a genuine email that SpamAssassin has marked as spam. It doesn’t catch all of the spam emails, but it does get all of the really obvious ones.
We run SpamAssassin in conjunction with sendmail on [...]

Popularity: 8% [?]

Our internet server managed to restart itself over night. That makes me feel real uncomfortable. Was the server shut down by the ISP as part of routine maintenance without telling us or did the server ABEND?
What really made my day is that we’ve not got round to starting all of the required services automatically at [...]

Popularity: 10% [?]

PLEASE NOTE: OPENXTRA are currently experiencing problems with our email service, therefore to contact us please call +44 (0)1943 465918 or use the Boldchat Service available on the right hand side of each page. Our apologies for any inconvenience and we hope to have resolved this shortly.
Update: It’s all sorted out now…I will be blogging [...]

Popularity: 13% [?]

Every IT person I’ve ever met has at least one nightmare story about being roped into fixing somebody’s home PC/network/broadband and everything going wrong.
A friend roped me into fixing his friend’s Windows 95 PC that his kids had managed to kill by installing all manner of junk onto it. Naturally, as soon as I had [...]

Popularity: 16% [?]

Greg Conti has released a new version of rumint that now works with WinPcap 4.0.1. If you tried rumint before and had problems, I suggest you give it another go.
Popularity: 24% [?]

Popularity: 24% [?]

Protocol analysers are difficult tools to master. Though, once mastered you’ll see the pay-off in increased productivity for the rest of your career. Many technologies come and go, but the fundamentals of how networks work changes slowly.
You can slug it out with books but structured learning will help speed things along.
If self paced learning suits [...]

Popularity: 21% [?]

The most puzzling aspect of the “New wave” network management buzz comparison is the OpenView & NetIQ graph. I find it hard to believe that either OpenView or NetIQ are losing traction in the marketplace. So, how do you explain the fall in their respective number of searches?
Network management vs network monitor
First port of call [...]

Popularity: 28% [?]

I was amused to read an article celebrating the launch of a new product called Multidweller by Pace Micro in the Yorkshire Evening Post. Sounds like a neat piece of technology delivering digital TV to multi-dweller buildings like blocks of apartments and the like.
The following are quotes from David Gillies, director of technology at Pace [...]

Popularity: 8% [?]

Google Trends is an on-line service for comparing the search volumes for up to five keywords. I thought it would be interesting to compare the relative buzz of the “new wave” open source network management players between themselves, but also between other open source projects and commercial products.
Google Trends doesn’t supply the search volumes themselves, [...]

Popularity: 57% [?]